Wednesday, April 01, 2009

Nodlers team to accept lobbyists' gifts


Add two more lobbyist-paid meals to the Nodler total for 2009.

And those are just for Joncee Nodler, wife of Senate Appropriations Commnittee Chairman Gary Nodler, R-Joplin.

Missouri Ethics Commission documents posted today showed that lobbyists paid for two meals for Mrs. Nodler in February. David Hale, lobbyist for the Missouri Hospital Association, bought her a $15 meal Feb. 16, while Gary Burton, representing the city of Joplin, came across with $32.20 in meal money Feb. 18. Mrs. Nodler's husband, of course, was present on both occasions.

Added with Gary Nodler's lobbyists' gifts and the man and wife tag team duo collected $116.49 in lobbyists' gifts in February.

Gary Nodler's total for the first two months of 2009 is $494.17, according to the Ethics Commission documents, while Mrs. Nodler has received $84.20, for a combined total of $578.37.

Paul Kincaid, representing Missouri State University, paid $37 apiece for the Nodlers to attend the "MSU Salute to Legislators Basketball Game."

The Nodlers received $3,252.56 in lobbyists' gifts during 2008, according to Ethics Commission documents.

Nodler picked up $1,913.27 of that amount, while Mrs. Nodler received $1,339.29 in gifts.

In the Dec. 31 Turner Report, I detailed gifts the Nodlers received from lobbyist Travis Brown, representing billionaire Rex Sinquefield:


Nodler, chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and his wife Joncee, received $1,135.98 in meals and lodging from Sinquefield's lobbyist Nov. 7 and Nov. 8, according to the documents. On Nov. 7, each of the Nodlers received $162.13 for meals, with the total increasing to $286.21 apiece for meals the following day.

Nodler received lodging totaling $239.30 on Nov. 7.


In the Nov. 1, 2008, Turner Report, I detailed the gifts Mrs. Nodler received during the first 10 months of the year:


January

-$30 meal from Integrity Health Care

February
-Feb. 27, $21.50 meal, Missouri Flagship Council

March

-March 12, $9.80 meal from Larry Cole, Cornerstone Health
-March 31, $21.78, meal, AT&T

June

-June 2, $26,39, Springfield Cardinals ticket, Sandy Howard, Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce
-June 19, $40, St. Louis Cardinals ticket, Calvin Call, Missouri Insurance Coalition

July
-$23,73, meal, Gary Forsee, University of Missouri
-$534.28 for meals, food, and beverage from lobbyists William Gamble, Jorgen Schlemeier, Sarah Topp, and Betsy Morgan of Gamble & Schlemeier, whose clients include Ameristar Casinos and the Missouri Health Care Association.

August
-$79.34 meal from Drue Duncan, Pfizer
-$42.40 meal, Gary Forsee, University of Missouri
-$44, MU football tickets, Martin Oetting, University of Missouri

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm sorry, who cares? Gary Forsee bought Nodler dinner. Wow.

Anonymous said...

I would think that Gary should be skipping a few meals.

Anonymous said...

Who cares? Someone with some kind of envy, unhappy with his life and a blog that covers up his inadequacies.

Randy said...

And what does that say about the kind of person who covers up his inadequacies by reading such material and feeling compelled to comment on it. Sounds masochistic to me.

Anonymous said...

Randy, how about reporting some of the things (donations, hours of volunteer work) the Nodlers GIVE freely.

Both Gary and Joncee have supported.with time and mone, to several projects I know about. Just things I know about personally are worth far more than the amount of "gifts" you have dragged through the mud about them.

Anonymous said...

Randy, What on earth are you talking about? Why do you think the person that said he or she didn't care about Nodler's meals has some inadequacies? And how on earth does their commenting about your trying to make something out of nothing with the Nodler's constitute covering up something of theirs????? Your response is really spooky, really weird, unless you think that it is Nodler himself and that would suggest a level of paranoia on your part that should lead you to seek help. Really Randy you seem out of control here.

Randy said...

I am just amazed that the only posts that ever receive this level of ridiculous comments are the ones concerning Gary Nodler. I don't believe Nodler is responding. I would have to believe he is more intelligent than to write some of the comments that have been made on his behalf.

Anonymous said...

Randy, Boy. When I hear that you start giving like the Nodlers I might take you seriously.
The day I hear you have become a Hospice volunteer and go to the home of a dying man to take care of him every week. When I hear you are helping him. Cooking a meal, cleaning his house, doing his laundry, talking to him and helping him not be so lonely, then I might listen to your silly concerns about a meal or a game ticket. Yeah, Randy, I can just see you doing laundry for a sick and dying old man that is basically a stranger to you.

I hope you're still not taking your laundry home for your mother to do.

Grow up Randy and be half the human beings that Gary and Joncee Nodler are.

Randy said...

Whatever good deeds Gary Nodler does have nothing whatsoever to do with the topic. When the senator's wife receives more gifts from lobbyists than half of teh senators, there is a problem. Lobbyists would not be paying for Nodler and his wife's meals and gifts if they were not getting their money's worth out of it.

Anonymous said...

Hey man....I've paid for a few meals for people and didn't expect one thing back....and I am in as much a position to want things from legislators as any lobbyist. Aren't we all lobbyists for something...for some group of which we are a part or for our religion or for our school....

we can deliver votes and influence just as much as most lobbyists...

Randy said...

You have got to be kidding! This has to be college kids playing a prank.

Anonymous said...

If you don't think the pastor of a large church or the owner of a large business or the leader of a large group such as a sportsman's group can't deliver votes, then that makes it easier to understand why your party doesn't do very well in this neck of the woods. You don't have to be registered to be a lobbyist!

In an area that covers the size of a Missouri State rep or even a Missouri state senator, you can do an awful lot with a relatively low number of votes.